the oklahoma chapter

(the following is an extremely condensed version of an approximately 3 year span of my life.... ages 7-10.)

i was only a child. we traveled half way cross country from the comfort of new jersey living to chase down my father's ambitions of starting anew. he was retired military, the army... but wanted back in. civilian lifestyle wasn't fulfilling enough and just like that, the whole family rejoined the military with him.

our dad would meet us out there. me, my brother phil, and my mom hopped into a car and never looked back. we stayed at motels and ate at waffle houses. a few days later we were in a strange place far away from anything we had ever known. and now we'd call it home.

we adapted to life in the town of lawton, oklahoma. me and phil rode bikes and watched pro wrestling with our buddies. we became cub scouts and our parents were cub scout troop leaders. we held meetings at our house. we had a cat named gizmo that we tortured but loved at the same time as only kids could.

soon we'd be on the move again, but not too far. we were moving from off base to an on base household. home was now called fort sill, oklahoma, where we were surrounded by other military families. every month they gave out an award for best front lawn and there were parks scattered throughout the neighborhood. the army tested heavy artillery in fort sill and from time to time the ground beneath us would shake from explosions. they played bugle songs on loud speakers to tell us when it was 5am, 6am, 10pm, and 11pm. if you woke up early enough, you'd catch gangs of g.i.'s running through the streets in formation.

nintendo hit the streets. me and phil were hooked like crackheads. we'd get together with friends and play super mario brothers till we had it beat. and after that we'd play it till we knew of every warp zone and shortcut. sometimes our mom would join us and pick up a controller and play. she'd do that in cracks of her own busy schedule. she was on her way to getting a bachelor's degree in accounting.

in school, there were days we were encouraged to dress up like cowboys. i collected gi joe's. we threw rocks at kids and kids threw rocks at us. that was sorta the thing to do in fort sill. one day a girl threw rocks at phil. phil told her to stop or else he'd call the cops. she threw another rock. phil stormed inside and called the cops. the cops came and scooped us up and brought us in when they realized we were home unsupervised. mom and dad had to pick us up. mom and dad had to attend parenting counseling sessions.

we got a second cat, tiffany. but tiffany didn't stay long. we let our cats come and go as they pleased. one day tiffany left the house and never came back. we were a one cat household once more.

and then things got weird. mom and dad started fighting. and then i started having stomach aches. and then i never wanted to go to school. and if i went to school, i wanted to go home sick. and then my best friend mike wasn't my best friend anymore. and then mike challenged me to my first and really only fight in my whole life (no winner. we were surrounded by other kids. mike punched me in the ear and then phil ran in and jumped on his back. we were fighting on some dude's lawn. he came out and told us to beat it. fight over, the group of kids scattered in different directions).

and then we got the news. dad was being transferred to a new location. he was given orders to go to south korea. he would leave december 27th and for some reason, we weren't going with him. two days before, on christmas, our dad told us he had work. he put on him army fatigues and left the house. he couldn't spend christmas with us. he would later come clean and tell us that he spent that day with the woman who he would later marry.

our dad left us on the 27th. he woke us up early and we shared a tearful goodbye. later that day, my mom was left behind to tell us the bad news. she was the one who had to tell us how it was gonna be for the rest of our lives together. dad had left and he wasn't coming back and we weren't going to korea. mom and dad were getting a divorce and we were going back to jersey.

on our road trip back, we stopped at a friend of my mom's house in north carolina. we opened gizmo's cage. gizmo ran out into a field and never came back. we pressed on towards jersey without gizmo. we pressed on towards jersey without a dad. we pressed on towards jersey leaving behind the last time i felt like a carefree kid.